The mod lite of John Large took to the skies during his heat race at Muskingum County Speedway in Zanesville, Ohio.
“There were fast cars in the race, so I was pushing it hard — I guess a little too hard,” Large, of Warsaw, Ohio, said. “When the cars in front of me bottled up, I had nowhere to go, except over the edge.”
When Large’s car ran over the cushion, it started to go down the backside of the first turn, catching its frame on the berm. The car started rolling, bounced to the ground, and then went skyward.
“The track was really smooth, and that gave me confidence to race faster,” said Large. “When I went over, it happened so fast. I felt I was spinning over and around and over. I could see my arms flying in front of me. I tried to grab the steering wheel, but they kept flying off.”
Large and his twin teenage sons, Nick and Evan, typically race together weekly at the Hilltop Speedway in Millersburg, Ohio. They have three mod lites and a truck. Muskingum County Speedway, which races periodically, drew mod lites from throughout the region.
The impact with the ground bent the roll cage of Large’s car about an inch. Large said his right arm was black and blue and his leg was sore after the race. Other than that, he was not hurt.
John Large sat in a ButlerBuilt standard racing seat, strapped in with a Simpson five-point harness. He wore a Vega motorcycle helmet, a Pyrotect neck collar, Simpson fire suit and gloves, and RJS Racing Equipment shoes.
“I’ll be shopping for a racing helmet and a head-and-neck restraint,” Large said. “I put my sons in good safety equipment, but didn’t have enough funds to protect myself as well as I should have.”
Note: We corrected the spelling of Muskingum County Speedway (2020-10-14). We corrected the Hilltop Speedway to the one in Millersburg (2020-10-15).
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
